Sahara's 'sensational' UP polls survey creates ripples

Last updated on: January 27, 2012 13:07 IST

Can you imagine that in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly election Bharatiya Janata Party can get almost 24 per cent votes to come second in the four-cornered contest between ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party, Congress and the BJP?

Can you imagine the situation where all efforts of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi could fail and it can come fourth in the upcoming election?

Can you foresee that Chief Minister Mayawati can lose power in a disgraceful defeat?

In a highly controversial and sensational survey done by Lucknow-based Sahara India Parivar, Mulayam Singh Yadav-led SP would get the highest percentage of votes of around 26 per cent?

SP will be followed by BJP, and BSP would come third with fewer votes if compared to BJP, the survey noted.

The survey known as "Sahara Survey" in New Delhi gave less than 15 per cent votes to the Congress party.

Since last two weeks this survey has created a sensation in New Delhi amongst the top leadership of both the Congress and BJP.

Subrata Roy Sahara, chairman of Sahara Pariwar, has met BJP president Nitin Gadkari recently to apprise him of the survey which gives BJP massive increase of 7 per cent votes compared to the election of 2007.

In the last assembly election, BJP had got 17 per cent of votes and 50 seats. According to the source, Subrata Sahara has also met a few leaders of the Congress party.

The source in BJP told rediff.com that it is difficult to judge how reliable is the survey due to Sahara group's perceived proximity to Samajwadi Party.

But, he added, what is impressive is that the survey has been done on a massive scale where all the employees of Sahara Parivar were sent the questionnaire. More than a lakh people were directly asked about their political preference all over UP. The size of sample survey is too big to ignore, admitted the source in BJP.

Uttar Pradesh is a nightmare of any pollster and there is NO reason to believe the survey as the "ground reality," but it is enough to send shock-waves amongst politicians.

Rediff.com could not confirm the details with the Sahara group at the time of filing of the report.